Washington (AFP) – The White House abruptly withdrew its vaccine-skeptical nominee for director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ahead of a scheduled Senate hearing on Thursday, marking a setback for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s agenda.
Like Kennedy, internal medicine physician and former Florida congressman David Weldon has long voiced concerns about potential adverse effects from immunization and has promoted the debunked theory of a link between vaccines and autism. The withdrawal comes as measles, a once-vanquished childhood disease, has killed two people and infected more than 250 in Texas and New Mexico, the majority of whom were unvaccinated.
Kennedy’s comments downplaying both the severity of the outbreak and the role of vaccination in its prevention may have contributed to eroding political support for Weldon among Republican senators, ultimately influencing the White House’s decision to pull the nomination. A Senate committee that would have voted on Weldon put out a statement just minutes before the hearing was scheduled to take place saying it had been cancelled after he pulled out.
“During one of the worst measles outbreaks in years because of Trump, Weldon should NEVER have even been under consideration to lead CDC,” Democratic Senator Patty Murray wrote on X. Weldon, 71, told The New York Times that a White House official contacted him on Wednesday night to inform him that “they didn’t have the votes to confirm” his nomination.
— Kennedy ‘upset’ —
Speculation on holdouts centers on one Republican senator in particular — Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who is also a medical doctor. Cassidy had pressed Kennedy on his history of vaccine skepticism during the health secretary’s confirmation hearings before ultimately voting to confirm him.
As a Republican congressman, Weldon co-sponsored a 2007 bill, which ultimately failed, that sought to create a vaccine safety office independent of the CDC, arguing that the agency had an inherent conflict of interest. He also raised concerns about a “possible association between the mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, and the childhood epidemic of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), including autism.” Thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines in the United States in 2001. According to the CDC, “there is no evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site.”
Under Kennedy, the CDC has been tasked with investigating this alleged link, which was first widely raised in a 1998 paper that was later found to be based on manipulated data. The scientific consensus remains that there is no causal connection between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine — or any other vaccine — and autism.
Weldon said Kennedy was “very upset” about the decision but noted that he would ultimately return to his private practice, where he expects to “make much more money,” according to The New York Times.
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